Shared code among multiple apps?

I’m very much a newcomer to Rails (and Ruby), so forgive me if the
answer to
this question is obvious:

Is it possible to share files among two or more rails apps? I’m using a
shared host with multiple domains pointing to various sub-directories
containing different rails apps, and I was hoping there’s a way to have
common files (i.e. a view containing a set of links to be displayed at
each
domain) accessible from the each app.

I realize that using symbolic links is a possible solution, but I’d like
to
stay away from this option if possible: My host uses Linux, but I work
on
Windows, and taking the time to manually make sure everything in the
file
system lines up is less than desirable.

Does rails offer some elegant way to reference files from other apps?